


Shift

by joisbishmyoga



Category: YuYu Hakusho
Genre: Gen, Oops, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:24:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After 18 years, Kurama is finally ready to shift into a full fox, for the first time since his first death.</p>
<p>It doesn't quite go as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shift

"Moon's up."

Kurama didn't glance at Hiei, an impatient little shadow perched in his window. "Is it."

Hiei didn't repeat himself. Instead, he asked, "Are you ready, or should I come back in fifty years?"

Sometimes, Kurama thought Hiei had taken a little too well to friendly mockery. Then he remembered the half-feral little literalist who'd nearly taken his head off when they met, and... well, that held a special place in his heart too, but it wasn't as if Hiei had lost that adorable homicidal edge. Just honed it.

Setting down his pen and flexing his fingers, Kurama inhaled, running youki through his veins. It felt... exact. "I think I've fully assimilated the body."

"Hn." Hiei shifted, stretching out along the sill. "Took you long enough."

Kurama shrugged. Technically speaking, he'd had full functionality since he was ten, enough youki permeating the cells to allow him to use said youki as well as he had as a youko. And with Suzuki's potion boosting the process, he'd been able to shift to his half-human form several years early.

Now, though, his youki had infiltrated right down to the DNA, and he should be able to shift to a full fox. Finally.

It was still sunny out, late afternoon, but the waxing moon should be strong enough... with a little help. "A bit of firelight would be appreciated," Kurama said as he stood up. Homework could wait.

Hiei grinned, raising his fist, and violet-black flames flared up. The sun streaming through the window took on an eerie cast, flickering across the thick rug and gleaming in thin flashes along the silvery scuffs on Kurama's bedframe.

Silver, werelight, a rising moon, and Hiei -- who was ice and inversion and quicksilver speed himself, who carried the eye, the blade, and the dragon. It would be just enough.

The shift had once been muscle memory, but now it took conscious attention; Kurama was vaguely reminded of trying to move after being badly injured. But that was only difficult, not impossible, and he changed.

Collapsing --- shrinking --- _unspooling_ and _something was wrong_ \--- 

Hiei's fire flared, then sputtered out. "... That's not a kitsune."

Too much _stomach_ and he barely had _legs_ and there were _glistening scaley coils all over the rug_ and _where were his tails?!_

"You look like an eel," Hiei said, eyes huge and painfully young with shock. "Or like a pipe fox. If the smoker was as big as this house."

Kurama flopped over, wriggled, and made a credible snap at Hiei's ankle. It missed -- Hiei was by far the fastest member of their group -- but he thought he rather got the point across.

_Knock knock._

Kurama froze.

"Shuiichi?" The knob rattled, then clicked open, and Shiori walked into the room with a basket of folded clothes balanced on her hip. (Hiei flickered in the window and vanished. _Traitor!_ Kurama shot after him.) "Your laundry..." she trailed off.

Silence. Kurama didn't dare move. Maybe she'd think he was a plushie. (Maybe the moon would fall out of the sky.)

"Oh dear." The basket thumped quietly to the floor, and footsteps padded up behind Kurama. "Shuiichi? Sweetheart? Are you okay?"

_Do I LOOK okay?_ Kurama thought, with a slight edge of hysteria. Why wasn't his mother screaming? (Must be the shock. She'd come to her senses any second now.) (... Maybe she'd decide he was a plushie after all.)

Soft, scarred hands scooped gently under him, one under his ribs and the other catching stubby back legs in her palm, and Shiori lifted him with care. Kurama's head fell naturally into the crook of her elbow. "And here I thought I wouldn't be giving you The Talk until _after_ high school," she said ruefully.

.... What?

"Well, you always were precocious," she added. "Come on, then. I'll get you some tea and explain about Great-Grandpa Himura. ... That's the dragon part, anyway. I have no idea where the fox features came from." She smiled, slim fingers scritching in little tufts of fur on Kurama's slim head, where his ears should've been. "Your father's line must've had kitsune lurking in it somewhere. Here, lift your tail so I won't trip over it, hm?"

So much for being a plushie.


End file.
